


A Boxer

by SylpheedDashstep



Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5961163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylpheedDashstep/pseuds/SylpheedDashstep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Boxer didn't always know Red, and his life wasn't always so grand and exciting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Boxer

He used to just be a nobody. Someone who had learned how to live off the grid, where the system couldn't find him, and where he was comfortable. He was just a boxer. The Boxer. There weren't many like him. Weren't many boxers to begin with. Fighting was looked down upon in Cloudbank. It was destructive. It was soulless. It was reckless. For him it was the opposite. Boxing built him up. Boxing gave him his soul. Boxing gave him focus.

Life wasn't easy being a boxer. The Boxer. The pay wasn't great. People didn't really show up to fights. There weren't many worthwhile opponents. But those times… The times where he won big. The times where the ring was sold out. The times where he walked away from a fight heaving for breath and with blood dripping down his face. Those were the reasons he was a boxer. The Boxer.

He used to be a nobody. Then Sybil showed up. Then Trouble showed up. It was simple at first. This was what she was good at though, starting off simple. To draw them in. To get them on your side. To make it all that more easier. Too bad for her I had learned those tricks forever ago. How else does one stay off the grid as a boxer. The Boxer. It was late when she made her first move. I had just finished my last fight of the night, and I was looking to go home. Wherever home would be that night.

“Hello there,” a voice spoke as I stepped outside. I couldn't say it startled me, I knew she was there, but I was surprised that she was speaking directly to me. It was uncommon for someone of a higher class to even bother talking to someone like me. Especially me.

It was obvious she was higher class, even through the jeans and simple red t-shirt she wore. It was in her stance. It was in those two words she spoke. It was in the stitching on her clothing. It was in her eyes. It told me she was Sybil Reiz. It told me she was Trouble.

“Hi,” I replied carefully.

“You took that hit like a champ in there,” she stated, looking at me like she was sizing me up for something.

“I’m a boxer.” The Boxer. “It's what you have to do to win.”

“Well Mr. Boxer. Mr. Boxer who's not in the records. Mr. Boxer who can't be found anywhere. Mr. Boxer who’s not on the system. I have something to ask of you.”

“Yeah?” She was silent. I was too. Both of us stood there.

“I'm still thinking about it.”

And with that she turned and walked into the night. After a moment of hesitation I turned and walked the other way. I didn't stop. I walked past a poster announcing the fight between “The Transistor and Bracket.” I walked past homes. I walked past people who shied away at the sight of me. A boxer. The Boxer.

I stopped. It was a dingy, rundown old motel, and I decided it would do for the night. It took another week for trouble to find me.

“I’ve made up my mind.” I didn't reply. I didn't even turn to acknowledge that she had spoken to me. She would tell me. “What does the name “Red” mean to you?”

“Who?”

“Good,” she replied, rather than answering. “Meet me here if you're interested.”

A piece of paper was placed into my hand and she was gone without me ever seeing her. That night I looked at that paper sitting on my bed at home. Tonight home was a slightly better motel. Just slightly.

I stared at that paper until it's words were etched into my eyes as I wondered what it help. As I wondered where it would lead me. As I wondered how far down this rabbit hole went. As I tried to come up with reasons I shouldn't go.

None of them worked. So I found myself jumping. So I found myself at the Empty Set. So I found myself sitting in a room facing two women. One of them Trouble. The other… Unsure. Unsteady. Scared.

“Red, this is my friend, the boxer I was telling you about. He calls himself the Transistor,” Sybil started the conversation.

Her friend, Red, didn't speak, simply looked at me. But she wasn't scared. Wasn't phased. Wasn't mesmerized by the wraps on my hands. She saw me.

“Right,” Sybil continued on after our lack of greetings. “Transistor, I hav-”

“Call me Blue,” I interrupted.

Red looked horrified that I had interrupted her, but Sybil only looked like she had smelled something displeasing. Good. If she wanted to string me along like this she would have to deal with it. We were in silence for a few moments, Red of all people breaking it with a small laugh that she tried to cover up.

Sybil huffed and continued on, “Blue, Red needs a bodyguard and I don't trust anyone else to do it.”

“But you hardly know me,” I observed. Of course she did though, we both knew she had already scrounged up whatever information about me she could. What better person to hire for this than a no one.

“And that's why you’ll take the job.”

With that Sybil rose and left.

I used to be a nobody. A scoundrel. A boxer. The Boxer.

Then Red said, “It's nice to meet you. Do you wanna get two Sea Monsters from Junction Jan’s?”

>>

“There's nothing on you, you know that,” Red said to me.

“I disappeared from the system when I was young. It was easy.” I left it at that. We hadn't gotten to the point where we freely talked yet.

Red seemed to understand that as we walked together. I wasn't sure where we were going, I never really was, I just followed her. I followed the sing-song hum of her voice. I followed the striking red hair. I followed her. I followed. And she lead. Always knowing where to go. Always aware of where we were. Always aware of where I was.

She was Red, and I was Blue. She complemented what I was missing . The excitement. The rushing. The fame. And I complemented what she was missing. The quietness. The lull. The anonymity. We became closer than I was comfortable with, but I allowed it. I stood outside her dressing room. I waited down in the first row of seats for the show to end. I was there, but never seen.

Then slowly they changed. I was in the dressing room with her, talking and calming her nerves as she readied herself. I stood just behind the curtain as I waited for her. I became noticed. Rumors spread. Recent history was drug up. Posters were pulled out from boxes. And then everyone heard about it.

And it hurt Red the most during that time.

>>

“Why does it matter that you were a boxer,” she asked one day.

It was just us, sitting in her apartment and doing nothing but sitting on the couch together, staring at the ceiling.

“It's destructive. It's violent. It's chaos. It's anti-Cloudbank.”

“How long has it been?”

“Huh?”

“Since you last fought. As a boxer.”

“A month. Maybe two.”

“Ever since you started protecting me.”

He didn't respond. Didn't need to. She understood. They were starting to get there. Starting to be a pair. Starting to understand each other. Starting to…

“Red, what were your Selections?”

“Definitely not singing...yours?”

“I haven't taken mine yet. Still figuring things out.”

“What things?”

I didn't say anything.

>>

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it's just a black eye.” I grabbed Red’s wrists and gently pulled them away from my face. “Red, I’ll be fine, it's not the first time I’ve had one.”

“Sorry, I didn't expect them to get so agitated about something I sang.”

“Well, that's Cloudbank for you.” Anything controversial is frowned upon. “Looks like you're a boxer now.”

“Huh?”

“Moving out to the County before we all become one? Doesn't exactly sound very pro-Cloudbank.”

“Good, now let me see that eye, there's gotta be an ice pack around here somewhere.”

>>

The outcry against her music only feuled her in creating these songs. She grew a lot in a short period of time and it became very apparent that people weren't exactly against her music. The problem was that they were moved by it, and she was more than willing to fuel their fire.

Sybil started showing up more, started digging deeper into what kind of person Red was, started becoming suspicious. I started becoming more and more wary of letting her and Red be alone together because every moment they were Red cane back...just a little more different. Then I heard a name that I won't ever forget.

The Camerata.

I didn't know who they were or what they wanted but people began dissapearing, people like Red, influential people, just as that name began to float around. It couldn't be good. First it was Noila, then Tennigan, then Moyle. Either gone to the Country or just in hiding for one reason or another. More and more just dissapeared and slowly the city lost it's flash and glamour. More and more the city became a blank canvas on which no one was painting. More and more I itched to do something. More and more Red grew distant.

And it hurt. I was surprised at first by it, I had never missed someone before. But Red wasn't gone, not yet. I could see it in her eyes. I could hear it in her voice. I could feel it in the tenderness she still had. She was still Red, but they were changing her.

>>

“What do you think the County is like Blue?”

“I dunno. It must be great though for no one to wanna come back.”

“You don't think anyone’s come back?”

“Have you heard about anyone coming back?”

“No..”

“If I'm being honest...I don't think the Country truly exists. Not like what we're thinking.”

“You think that?”

“Maybe.”

“Why?”

“If Cloudbank is so great, why would there be anything better? Here we can vote on anything, want a new bridge? Vote one into existence. Want a better sky? Vote up a new one.”

“Right…”

“But the problem with it is that it all feels so...fake. Why do we bother to do anything when we can just change it at the tip of a hat? It's all so uninspired. It's all so meticulous. It's all so tedious.”

Red didn't respond. She didn't have to. We were both sitting there in silence until Sybil walked in.

“Red, your show at the Empty Set is sold out, we have a full house.”

>>

I should have known something was up. Should have guessed that Sybil was doing something. Should have figured that the Camerata was coming for Red. She was the most likely target of course, being one of the loudest ones to speak, or rather sing, about the fact that everything isn't alright and that we need to open our eyes.

Of course everyone looked when it was too late. And now Red is on the stage singing and the people are listening but none of them are hearing what she's saying. They're swaying to the tempo, but none of them are understanding that this system they are living in is broken and needs to be repaired. And now the show is over, and me and Red are stepping out of the Empty Set, hoping to get back home before anyone finds us and asks for something.

Except, Sybil is there. And she's not alone. With her are three people whose names I’ve heard thrown about along with the Camerata. Grant, Asher, and Royce. Then it clicks in my head. This is how the Camerata functions. They hide behind their access and they prevent from happening what should naturally be occurring.

“You said she'd be alone,” Grant said, breaking through my thoughts.

“She was, I was told he was too sick to make it tonight,” Sybil replied, glaring at me. She was lying. I could tell and in that moment I had too many thoughts run through my head to process. I wanted to call her out. I wanted to tell Red to run. I wanted to shout for help.

Grant didn't reply, instead inclining his head towards Royce, who raised his hand, a light blue sword appearing from nowhere and hovering there for a second before Royce made a motion with his hand. I jumped without a second thought, forcing Red out of the way. And then there was darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this thing in my head and I decided to scribble it down as I could during the last week. Dunno if the next chapter of MC;LE is still gonna come out this week though so, sorry if it doesn't, I needed to get this out.


End file.
